Optimizing Control Slaver in the Fall 2k6 metagame

[GUnit]

I've been toying around with CS now since the spring and I've tested many different configurations of the deck, but my sample sizes still haven't been large enough to decide for sure which card choices are optimal in the peripheral and metagame slots of the deck. I have also noticed that due to changes in the metagame I am discarding cards that were originally maindecked due to power level for weaker, but faster cards. I am interested in using this thread as an open discussion to try and get an objective feel from the general public of what the most correct choices for the customizable slots are, omitting specifics about the manabase unless it's really necessary.

I will begin by listing our pretty much generally accepted starting point, for U/r/b builds:

Drain Base(17):
--------------
4 x Brainstorm
4 x Force of Will
4 x Mana Drain
1 x Ancestral Recall
1 x Time Walk
1 x Yawgmoth's Will
1 x Tinker
1 x Demonic Tutor
0 x Vampiric Tutor (moved to customizable slots)

Slaver Base(7+1 customizable slot):
--------------
4 x Thirst for Knowledge
2 x Goblin Welder
1 x Mindslaver
1 x Giant Big artifact Win Condition

So, assuming that we have a 25 card manabase, which is by far the most common configuration historically, we are left with 11 slots (including the giant big artifact win condition listed above) to play around with in the design of our deck. I will now briefly list cards which I have tested personally, and which are either being played now, or have been in the past:

Artifact Dudes:

Sundering Titan: I really like sundering titan. I like that he can be welded out, I like that 8 mana isn’t that much if you land a nice drain, and I like that his ability can completely wreck your opponent when he lands on the table. Unfortunately, the first turn nuts draw of protected tinker into titan just sucks compared to the analogous play with DSC, and in general your clock with titan is a turn slower than with DSC. Also, the lack of trample hurts, particularly in game 1 against aggro, and he can be pwned by rack and ruin.

Darksteel Collosus: The pros of darksteel are the inverse of the cons of titan. His presence strengthens your aggro game, allows you the potential of more broken starts, provides a quicker clock and is somewhat harder to deal with. Unfortunately, since DSC can’t be welded and his CC is in the double digits he is almost completely dependent on tinker, which skews the way that the deck plays out. Oftentimes I’d like to tinker for jar or mindslaver or trike (or sometimes even jester’s cap), but if I know that they only way for me to play DSC any time soon is yawg’s will then I’m pretty much committing to winning by another means or waiting for a while. This is completely dependent on very specific gamestates, obviously.

Triskelion: Trike is a guy who makes me happy when I’m playing against opposing weenies and welders, and he provides a not insignificant 4 damage per turn (more with welder tricks). Also, he’s impossible to swords while he’s got counters on him. The utility makes him worth consideration alone, and the fact that he doubles as an alternate path to victory is excellent. Unfortunately null rod makes trike a 4/4 for 6, and trike isn’t very helpful in the face of enormous oath creatures or DSC.

Duplicant: Duplicant can be great and he can be terrible. Unlike trike, he can answer big threats, while providing one on your side of the team. Like trike, when combined with a welder he can decimate an army of weenies. Unlike trike he’s a pretty limp-wristed win condition if he’s not imprinted. He does function 100% under a null rod, though.

Platinum Angel: Out of the big artifacts I’ve used the angel the least (well, I haven’t used pentavus at all, really). I constantly find myself having trouble deciding what I would cut to include her, although she does win random games from time to time.


Artifact Stuff (meta, draw or otherwise):

Memory Jar: Use of the jar is just insane with welder recursion and often leads to devastating mana development advantages as well as graveyard utility advantages. Some of my favourite plays with the jar are to dump a slaver/cap during my endstep and then weld and activate before my opponent’s turn, to walk out into a new turn untapped with a tonne of mana and an untapped welder, or even to brainstorm/topdeck tutor some insanity onto the top of my library for the next turn. Unfortunately, though, there are times when I essentially give my opponent a time walk by jarring into nothing… it doesn’t happen very often, but when it does it is extremely disappointing, especially if there isn’t a welder in play.

Tormod's Crypt: This one has spent an awful lot of time in one of my deck’s meta slots, but I’ve been recently considering shunting it off to the sideboard. It’s really hit or miss, I find, and it’s not incredibly difficult for most decks to play around- although they do have to play around it. Additionally it’s just dead in some matchups, whereas a more general answer like a bounce spell can be used against pretty much anything. The advantage, though, is that at least in the matchups where it’s more or less dead it can still be welded for something or pitched to TfK.

Crucible of Worlds: CoW allows for strip mine recursion silliness, it protects your duals and restricted lands and it adds the potential of infinite slaver recursion. BUT, it costs three mana, it’s a weak tinker target, it has virtually no impact on some games and it’s slow to act in others. To maximize the use of this card some have added a copy of wasteland to the deck.

Mindslaver: Some decks run 1, some run 2. This is dependent partly on the number of welders you run, partly on the metagame you expect and partly on the number of other artifacts crammed into the deck.

From here on out I am just going to briefly list the pro’s and con’s of various card selections, as many of them are similar.

Search/Draw:

Vampiric Tutor
Pro:
-the best of the topdeck tutors, gets anything
-great with memory jar
-instant
Con:
-black
- -CA
-takes a turn
-costs 2 life

Night's Whisper:
Pro:
-+card advantage
-decent first turn play, allows you to dig for lands/counters
-never a dead draw
Con:
-forces off-colour lands to be fetched
-sorcery speed
-costs 2 life (not such a big deal, I know)

Impulse:
Pro:
-instant speed
-blue
-virtual shuffle effect
-improves card quality
Con:
-no card advantage generated

Mystical Tutor
Pro:
-searches for most of the cards you would want to tutor for
-cheap, blue and instant
-excellent with memory jar
Con:
-negative card advantage
-takes a turn to get your card

Fact or Fiction:
Pro:
-one of the most powerful draw spells in the format
-increases card quantity with the potential of placing useful artifacts in the yard
-forces your opponent to make decisions
Con:
-useless in the early game/expensive

Gifts Ungiven:
Pro:
-extremely versatile search/draw spell that can be used to get artifacts, mana, draw, counters, etc.
Con:
-useless in the early game/expensive

Merchant Scroll:
Pro:
-increases the odds of having counters up in the first few turns
-searches for bounce, counters and draw
Con:
-sorcery speed
-no card advantage generated

Meta Slots:

Fire/Ice:
Pro:
-pitchable and cyclable (even timewalks against DSC)
-can go 2 for 1 against fishies
-tutorable via merchant scroll
Con:
-Not very useful in a lot of matchups

Lava Dart:
Pro:
-one mana (solid vs. xantid swarm)
-flashback
Con:
-even more useless than fire/ice in those matchups

Rack and Ruin:
Pro:
-hits 2 for 1 at instant speed
Con:
-stax isn’t very popular and this costs 3 mana

Echoing Truth:
Pro:
-arguably the best targeted bounce spell
Con:
-like other bounce spells, can get stuck in hand doing nothing

Duress:
Pro:
-strengthens early game against control/combo
-not really dead in any matchups
-excellent first turn play, particularly game 1 (unless your duress shows you wastelands)
Con:
-stresses manabase

Mana Leak:
Pro:
-strengthens early game against pretty much everything
-increases the amount of countermagic in the deck
Con:
-often awful late in the game, but at least pitchable

Misdirection:
Pro:
-strengthens early game against pitchlong, which is a really bad matchup, and MDG
-can randomly steal ancestrals or redirect nastiness at your opponent
Con:
-more pitch magic means more 2 for 1’s for you opponent
-sometimes just sits in hand against decks with few/no counters
-requires lots of blue cards in the deck (which there are)

Other:

Gorilla Shaman:
Pro:
-hit for 1 each turn or chump blocks fishies
-changes your opponents’ gameplans and chomps down on their mana
-deal with problem artifacts like chalice, needle and eventually null rod
Con:
-pretty useless in some matchups
-slow against combo
-red

Goblin Welder:
Some decks opt for 2, some for 4, but the overwhelming majority seems to opt for 3. It depends on the rest of the deck.

Burning Wish
Recoup

These two pretty much go hand-in-hand. The utility from burning wish, paired with the tendrils kill, is nice, but not necessary. It does provide an avenue to victory that is completely independent of welders and artifacts, though. Note that recoup is not absolutely necessary in burning slaver.



I have been testing out maindeck duress a lot, in spite of its lack of popularity, and I have been very pleased by the results. One of my main motivations for writing all of this is to figure out why duress never appears in the lists online. Opening game 1 with a duress gives you two advantages right off the bat: it convinces your opponent that you’re playing fish or SS, and it tells you exactly what they’re playing. So, not only are you gaining information (and knocking a nasty card out of your opponent’s hand) but you’re misleading them at the same time.

My current build, which is biased against my weak matchups (being combo and combo/control) is sporting the following in those 11 slots:
3 x Duress
1 x Misdirection
1 x DSC
1 x Trike
1 x Goblin Welder
1 x Memory Jar
1 x Echoing Truth
1 x Jester’s Cap/T. Crypt
1 x Vampiric Tutor

Comparing top 16 lists from the past two months at major events there is quite a bit of variation, but there are a few constants:
-Every single deck has 3 welders in it
-Every deck but one has E truth in it, the exception being a chain of vapor
-Every deck has triskelion in it
-DSC is heavily favoured over Sundering Titan, although Titan does appear... and two decks have neither.

The rest is too variable to select based on the statistics. Although, that's not saying that statistics should have any bearing on the final decision.

What do you guys think the best choices are for these slots, provided the state and direction of the current North-American metagame, and why?


EDIT: My mistake on the vampiric tutor. That portion of my post was copied from a discussion I had with a friend a while ago. I agree that the slot is not common among all lists. Make that 11 customizable slots!

[diopter]

I will post more later, but for now I would like to say that Vampiric Tutor is not a globally accepted maindeck card the way that Demonic Tutor is.

EDIT: My current list is as follows:


Main Deck

3 Flooded Strand
6 Island
2 Polluted Delta
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island

1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Memory Jar
2 Mindslaver
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Tormod's Crypt

3 Goblin Welder
1 Triskelion

1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Echoing Truth
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Thirst for Knowledge

1 Demonic Tutor
4 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will


Sideboard
4 Sphere of Resistance (vs. Combo)
- Some number of Red Elemental Blasts (probably 3) and bounce spells (at least 2, usually Chain of Vapor and Hurkyl's Recall)
- Some number of basic Islands (usually 2) against Stax and Fish (Dropping to 3 Welders and running no metagame slots against artifacts in the sideboard has hurt my Stax matchup somehwat, and Fish's many ways to disrupt you everywhere is a pain in the ass - I've found the most effective way to combat these two decks is to be able to hit land drops every turn)
- Usually if I expect Fish, I will sideboard 2 Razormane Masticores. I don't like using Pyroclasm because it exposes your manabase to Wasteland, which is death against Fish unless you're ready to win. You're already vulnerable to Null Rod (more on that later).


Notable maindeck inclusions/exclusions/insights:

Merchant Scroll: I believe in maindecking a full set of Scrolls in a metagame with combo. Scrolls give you the disruption to stand a fighting chance against without forcing you to give up business cards or expose your manabase the way Duress will. Night's Whisper is stronger in a Drain-oriented metagame, so if you expect a lot of mirrors and Gifts matchups, use Whisper.

Library of Alexandria: I'm currently testing playing without Library. Sometimes I wish I had it, sometimes not. It's a beast in the Drain mirror but I've been screwed more than once in the combo matchup by not having two blue sources and having to mull into oblivion. More testing may bring Library back into the maindeck.

Playing against Null Rod: This maindeck configuration bends over somewhat to Null Rod. It's not an unwinnable game, but it's not favorable. Including DSC in the maindeck would significantly improve your game against Rod, but it will be at the cost of drawing dead Colossi. I've given up many slight edges by drawing a dead Colossus, or needing to pitch a weld target to Thirst and not having one, or to Tinkering out a Colossus only to see it bounced away - and these slight edges turned into game losses quite a few times. Beating Rod pre-board involves either Echoing Truth or Triskelion - it's not pretty, so if you don't like losing to Null Rod, build your deck differently. Post-board becomes somewhat easier if you're packing Razormane Masticores (or even a single DSC), and additional basic land significantly bolster your game.


My thoughts on building Control Slaver:

One of the advantages of good Control Slaver builds that I think should be at the forefront of every player's mind is its ability to win small. You should focus on optimizing the deck to win with limited resources (2-3 lands, ~2 Moxen). Thus, I almost always start the maindeck with two Mindslavers and at least 3 Welders. You want to be able to break TfK as often as possible, because that draw spell becomes just nutty for the price that you pay for it.

Basically, when building CS, one must recognize that there is a certain bottleneck in maindeck space. You run the Goblin Welder + Slaver/big artifact engine, which necessitates at least 4 cards and optimally around 7 cards to abuse properly. These are 4-7 cards that a deck like Gifts dedicates to bounce, disruption(MisD, Duress), extra tutors, extra win conditions, etc. Therefore, you have to exercise discretion and extreme consideration when adding cards to the maindeck. You can't maindeck both MisD/Duress and Gifts/Fact the way Gifts decks can, unless you seriously dilute your Welder engine - if you do that, you might as well be playing straight Gifts because you are taking away from CS's biggest strength, which is winning small with said engine. Maindecking MisD or Duress alone is difficult because you are not adding to the deck's threat density - having that disruption is useless if you can't consistently follow up with a broken draw spell or tutor to beat the snot out of your opponent. Maindecking Fact or Gifts alone is awkward because you lack those MisD's or Duress'es to ever force these expensive spells past counterwalls. The best solution is to maindeck cheap business - Vampiric Tutor, Imperial Seal, Merchant Scroll, Night's Whisper are all good inclusions. Vamp and Seal are cheap and enable more broken plays at the cost of card disadvantage and exposing your manabase. Whisper provides card advantage (two cards is not to be underestimated - especially when you're digging for mana, drawing two is amazing) at the cost of exposing your manabase. Scroll fetches your countermagic directly, as well as fetching Mystical Tutor and Recall to duplicate the functions of both Vamp/Seal and Whisper, but at the cost of being the most expensive at doing these things. Which one to include depends highly on the metagame you're playing in, but it's become a universal constant across most metagames (especially in proxy-fied North America) that games play out faster and threat density is much more important than ever.

[GUnit]

I like your comparison of diluted CS to gifts. This is an issue I have been struggling with a lot lately, although the list I have above does include a slaver and a faux-slaver (jester's cap), along with the trio of welders, the dudes and the jar.

I honestly had never even considered running more than two scrolls. I'll playtest four.

[Glix]

I think that Timespiral brings to attention some options that should be considered:

Triskilivus:
Pros: Creates artifact mana and slows down aggro decks even more
Cons: costs one more if hardcast and 1 to ping.

It seems that it would usually be stronger, but weaker in situations against faster decks where your mana is under attack.

Wipe Away:
I would almost undoubtidly run this over truth.  Sure, it costs 1 more, but you gain so much in exchange.  I'm not going to lie, one mana can be a lot, esspecially 1 colored, but for it you gain uncounterabilty, no responses.  This is particularly strong.  You can now bounce slaver, trike, bargain, jar, all without fear.  It also significantly weakens tinker for colossus.

Trickbind:
In the sideboard, this should, imo, be considered in place of sphere.  I say considered.  It has cons.  Against discard based combo, it is weaker, but it also has a lot of applications against combo.  It not only kills tendrils regardless of counters (deals with pitchlong, a deck that usually gives slaver problems), but it also stops bargain and necro for a turn or two, which can be critical.  Just an option, though.

[diopter]

I think that Timespiral brings to attention some options that should be considered:

Triskilivus:
Pros: Creates artifact mana and slows down aggro decks even more
Cons: costs one more if hardcast and 1 to ping.

It seems that it would usually be stronger, but weaker in situations against faster decks where your mana is under attack.

Wipe Away:
I would almost undoubtidly run this over truth. Sure, it costs 1 more, but you gain so much in exchange. I'm not going to lie, one mana can be a lot, esspecially 1 colored, but for it you gain uncounterabilty, no responses. This is particularly strong. You can now bounce slaver, trike, bargain, jar, all without fear. It also significantly weakens tinker for colossus.

Trickbind:
In the sideboard, this should, imo, be considered in place of sphere. I say considered. It has cons. Against discard based combo, it is weaker, but it also has a lot of applications against combo. It not only kills tendrils regardless of counters (deals with pitchlong, a deck that usually gives slaver problems), but it also stops bargain and necro for a turn or two, which can be critical. Just an option, though.

Re: Triskelavus

This creature will be considered. I feel that the cost to ping will come up at the worst of times (e.g. during a suicide Tinker to deal with that Welder). The Slaver-lock benefit is kind of irrelevant - currently, if you can get both Slaver and Triskelion out, the game is generally over. The big benefit would be the strength of Triskelavus alone with Welder - generating tokens and self-enabled Welding make Triskelavus dangerous. Testing will tell.

Re: Wipe Away

Maindeck Wipe Away will be tested. I won't have more than 1 between main and board though.

Re: Trickbind

It will be tested, but my gut feeling is that Trickbind will be dismissed. Combo brings in Xantid Swarm vs. you, which Sphere of Resistance laughs at.

[Metman]

Everybody's meta is a little different so said slots need to be taken with a grain of salt.  I maindeck Fire/Ice and have found it to be the Golden Child of the deck.  It serves so many purposes and unlike your original "con" it is never dead.  Even against combo it at the very least taps down a key land acting as a pseudo Time Walk since you draw off it.  It's also an obvious card to side out against some matchups, which I have found to be difficult to do correctly.  

Since the F/I has been great for me the Merchant Scroll is an auto inclusion.  I currently run one but have tested two and like the feel of it in the deck.  It opens doors for the deck allowing it to play different roles and like the original post states to win small.  CS is a flexible deck, probably the most of any in the format now.  The MS allows this to happen even more so.  

Since MS is in the deck I've opted to run 1 of both Fact or Fiction and Gifts Ungiven.  If they resolve they are bombs that can easily seal the game but also bring you back from near death.  Timeing is key though with these two; walking into Mana Drain sucks.  I use them if the situation is right, if not they are easy to pitch to FoW.  They do what CS is supposed to do on a fundemental level, draw cards and put the best artifacts in the grave.   Some may say they are win more, I would disagree but they are easy to side out if other cards would be more useful.

My meta has a fair amount of Stax and more Fish than you can shake a stick at which has caused me to lean more and more to blue cards so that I can up my island count.  This is why I won't run Duress main nor Night's Whisper.  It's also caused me to drop Vampiric Tutor.  Duress finds it's way in the SB for CS/Gifts and combo matches, none of which run Wasteland, therefore it's okay to drop Sea or fetch for one first turn to Duress.

Lean is mean, winning small will win big, and staying flexible is the key to CS.  Don't be affraid to reevalutate cards in the deck.

[McBain]

i am on a love hate relationship with duress, its just to on and off in the maindeck. The one big pro, which was already pointed out, that it misdirects the opponent and might cause him to make bad plays.

some draw cards that where missed:

Skeletal Scrying- its black, its good late game and draws you lots of cards and basically can win the control matchup if timed right. Not dead in aggro matchup, but weaker.

Deep analysis- almost always a sb card, usually as a 1 of, strong in the control matchup again, but very weak in combo and aggro. Still an option in a drain meta.

[diopter]

Lean is mean, winning small will win big, and staying flexible is the key to CS.  Don't be affraid to reevalutate cards in the deck.

Well said. CS lists that are specifically tuned to metagames may seem objectively "less powerful" but they succeed because you don't have to work as hard to win. While it makes it easier to win with any deck when you don't have to work as hard, it is even more true in CS because of its win-small nature.

In a Fish-dominated metagame, if one wants to run CS, the following things must be considered:

1.) If Fish gets ahead in tempo, it wins.
2.) If Control Slaver maintains even tempo, it wins.
3.) Control Slaver runs out of gas fast

The first point is obvious - every time Fish can stifle a fetch, Daze your Thirst to tap you down (or worse, actually counter it!), waste a nonbasic, or drop Null Rod to neutralize a Mox, is a turn bought for their clocks to hit you. The second point is a statement about the relative power levels of these two decks. CS has objectively more powerful threats than Fish, so if it doesn't fall behind in mana and hand development, it will win. The third point is a problem that CS builds have unless specifically addressed - a card-advantage/selection base of just Thirst, Brainstorm, Recall, Demonic Tutor is nowhere near enough. This ties in directly to points 1 and 2 - if you don't have a critical mass of business spells, then point 2 will no longer be true because you won't always have the goods to "just win". As a consequence, Fish doesn't even necessarily have to out-tempo you to win.

So, what does this mean? It means:
a.) When building the deck, be mindful of the ways that Fish can out-tempo you. Specifically, they will be attacking your manabase - Rods already put a serious dampener on your entire engine, and unnecessarily exposing nonbasics is lethal. A direct consequence of this is that you shouldn't be playing non-blue cards unless they help you gain or regain tempo from the Fish player. Pyroclasm and Fire/Ice don't cut it because they don't kill Rod (your Achilles heel) nor Jotun Grunt (Fish's best clock). A more sensible way to build is to just include a larger suite of maindeck bounce, and to bolster the mana base (cut the Lotus Petal for an Island).
b.) Do not go overboard with solutions. Slaver still needs gas to win - your solutions are worthless if you can't follow up with something broken! Merchant Scroll is an excellent spell here, because it is blue, and can fetch bounce and Tinker via Mystical Tutor.

A rough main deck:

Anti-Fish Slaver

3 Flooded Strand
8 Island
2 Polluted Delta
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island

1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Memory Jar
1 Mindslaver
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

3 Goblin Welder
1 Razormane Masticore
1 Sundering Titan

1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Thirst for Knowledge

1 Demonic Tutor
4 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will

[yespuhyren]

Why not just play mono blue control?  You are down to 1 Volcanic and 1 Sea.  How do you expect to play welders, will, etc, when you have to fetch it, play 1 spell on color, and then get wasted?

Basically, my point is, with that few nonbasics your deck will not function at optimal levels IMO.  Just a thought.

[Moxlotus]

If you're playing in a meta of tons of fish then CoW is the absolute nuts.

[diopter]

Why not just play mono blue control?  You are down to 1 Volcanic and 1 Sea.  How do you expect to play welders, will, etc, when you have to fetch it, play 1 spell on color, and then get wasted?

Basically, my point is, with that few nonbasics your deck will not function at optimal levels IMO. Just a thought.

Not getting wasted in the early game is the primary goal against Fish - if you can curve out around ~4 mana, you *will* overpower them - *but*, you have to get there first. You can expect Fish to see an average of one Wasteland in the first 2 or 3 turns, and so you don't want to present them with a Wasteland target in the first 2 or 3 turns. The goal is to first establish your mana base and develop your hand (via much card drawing) and then play your bombs. By the time you lay down Welder or resolve that Will, it won't matter that they can waste your land, you are going to win that game.

In a different metagame, there would be more duals, of course. I posted that list specifically for a Fish-heavy metagame. I have too much respect for Fish to take chances with my manabase.

As to your comment of "why not just play mono-blue control"... because this is a thread about Control Slaver. You may very well want to play another deck over CS in a Fish metagame, but this thread is about "optimizing CS", as the title suggests.

EDIT:

Here is another point of discussion. Say the next SCG is won by Meandeck Gifts, and the top 8 looks like:

Meandeck Gifts
Meandeck Gifts
U/W Rod Fish
Pitch Long
Control Slaver
Uba Stax
Meandeck Gifts
Control Slaver

A lot of Drain decks in the top 8, no? So two SCGs from now, you expect to play Drain decks a lot, about once every 2 matches. The rest of the field will contain a fair amount of Fish, a smattering of Stax (of all varieties) and maybe four or five name players with Pitch Long.

You decide to bring Control Slaver. You have to prepare against this field, but you also have to take into account that your metagame prediction won't be perfect and hedge your deck against matchups like Dragon, Ichorid, Oath, etc.. In other words, build a Control Slaver that is optimized vs. Drains, without giving up much game against Fish, Stax, random decks, etc. and which can still take Combo down (even if it has to do it post-board).

[Moxlotus]

All I know is that Sphere of Resistance is probably the best sideboard card against Pitch Long.  It seriously makes it a pain in the ass.  Do we want to board in the anti counter stuff, or the anti lock component stuff?  There's a decision to be made for the PL player and either way he will be weak against one of your 2 types of disruption.  If you expect decent amounts of comob, a Slaver board should start off with 3 or 4 Spheres.

[warble]

Anyone who plays CS competitively in this environment dedicates to one of two gameplans:

1)  Goblin Charbelcher + Mana Severance or Burning Wish/Tendrils of Agony

or

2)  Gifts Ungiven, Fact or Fiction, Recoup, Burning Wish, DsC, 1-2 extra bounce spells

The pros of (1) are that you can take "fast" decks and race them effectively.  The pros of (2) are that you dominate the control mirror.  A deck with (2) will beat a deck with (1), but a deck with (1) will dominate a field of stax and fish while a deck with (2) will roll over and die in that same environment.

My personal preference is to stick with (1) because New England is no longer infested with CS and Gifts...but to counter this I will be maindecking at least 1 Misdirection with the gameplan from (1) simply because I believe that is the key reason that (2) can beat (1).  Not duress.

Tinker->Darksteel Colossus is the stupidest play in magic outside of Yawgmoth's Will.  It also allows you to deck opponents (I won two straight games against LIFE with his life total at 10 billion) so I will cut my arm off before I cut Darksteel Colossus.

Final Note:  Misdirection in this metagame, at least one and maybe two.

[Vegeta2711]

Why not just play mono blue control?  You are down to 1 Volcanic and 1 Sea.  How do you expect to play welders, will, etc, when you have to fetch it, play 1 spell on color, and then get wasted?

Basically, my point is, with that few nonbasics your deck will not function at optimal levels IMO. Just a thought.

Not getting wasted in the early game is the primary goal against Fish - if you can curve out around ~4 mana, you *will* overpower them - *but*, you have to get there first. You can expect Fish to see an average of one Wasteland in the first 2 or 3 turns, and so you don't want to present them with a Wasteland target in the first 2 or 3 turns. The goal is to first establish your mana base and develop your hand (via much card drawing) and then play your bombs. By the time you lay down Welder or resolve that Will, it won't matter that they can waste your land, you are going to win that game.

In a different metagame, there would be more duals, of course. I posted that list specifically for a Fish-heavy metagame. I have too much respect for Fish to take chances with my manabase.

As to your comment of "why not just play mono-blue control"... because this is a thread about Control Slaver. You may very well want to play another deck over CS in a Fish metagame, but this thread is about "optimizing CS", as the title suggests.

Wait wait, running only 5 fetches and 2 duals is not taking chances with your mana base? QUE? Like what happens when you actually have a dual in your opening hand, do you just auto-mull against Stax or Fish or something? Running only 2 duals also seems pretty terrible against a Fish deck that runs Stifle, since it'll really limit your ability to naturally draw into colored sources.

Besides all that it also heavily limits sideboard options, because you have a limited amount of colored production.

And I really don't understand anytime you'd be running Gifts in this deck. You may as well just play Gifts in that case.

[warble]

I really don't understand anytime you'd be running Gifts in this deck. You may as well just play Gifts in that case.

It's a win condition in CS the same way it is in Gifts; with enough mana it wins.  That's why I posted this thread initially, to dispel any off-topic rants about how CS can't break Gifts.  Not only can it, it did and it's done well doing so.

[Metman]

Gifts Ungiven is just as useful in CS as it is in Gifts.  It functions slightly differently at times but it does the same things.  In Gifts it puts bombs in the hand and bombs in the grave.  In CS it's the same with different names on the cards.  Both decks grab mana boost, card advantage, counter, tutor, board solution, and win piles.  There isn't a situation that Gifts is bad in CS.  I can't remember the last game I lost after resolving Gifts Ungiven.

[diopter]

Gifts Ungiven is just as useful in CS as it is in Gifts. It functions slightly differently at times but it does the same things. In Gifts it puts bombs in the hand and bombs in the grave. In CS it's the same with different names on the cards. Both decks grab mana boost, card advantage, counter, tutor, board solution, and win piles. There isn't a situation that Gifts is bad in CS. I can't remember the last game I lost after resolving Gifts Ungiven.

I have lost a number of games where Gifts didn't resolve because I didn't have enough countermagic to back it up, and still more games where Gifts sat in my hand while combo steamrolled me or Fish laid its obnoxious Rods or Chalices.

[Moxlotus]

I have lost a number of games where Gifts didn't resolve because I didn't have enough countermagic to back it up, and still more games where Gifts sat in my hand while combo steamrolled me or Fish laid its obnoxious Rods or Chalices.

Wow, that's funny.  I've lost games when I had Yawg Will get countered and I didn't have backup.  I've also had games where Yawg Will sat in my hand while combo steamrolled me or fish kicked the crap out of my mana base.

Yawg Will must suck then huh?

[Vegeta2711]

I really don't understand anytime you'd be running Gifts in this deck. You may as well just play Gifts in that case.

It's a win condition in CS the same way it is in Gifts; with enough mana it wins.  That's why I posted this thread initially, to dispel any off-topic rants about how CS can't break Gifts.  Not only can it, it did and it's done well doing so.

Gifts is worse than Fact in this deck and Fact is an arguable inclusion. I'm not seeing it. Then again I only play with two of the best CS players period, so what do I know?

[diopter]

I have lost a number of games where Gifts didn't resolve because I didn't have enough countermagic to back it up, and still more games where Gifts sat in my hand while combo steamrolled me or Fish laid its obnoxious Rods or Chalices.

Wow, that's funny.  I've lost games when I had Yawg Will get countered and I didn't have backup.  I've also had games where Yawg Will sat in my hand while combo steamrolled me or fish kicked the crap out of my mana base.

Yawg Will must suck then huh?

No, Will doesn't suck. Yawgmoth's Will is a bomb that operates both in the midgame and in the lategame to great efficiency. Gifts Ungiven is a definite late-game bomb that slightly less efficient at operating as a midgame bomb than Will, because it costs more mana to play. I was merely questioning the wisdom of playing more late-game bombs in a deck that has been found to struggle in the early game, when it could instead be focusing on improving its early game. The biting sarcasm does not help this discussion.

[Moxlotus]

I have lost a number of games where Gifts didn't resolve because I didn't have enough countermagic to back it up, and still more games where Gifts sat in my hand while combo steamrolled me or Fish laid its obnoxious Rods or Chalices.

Wow, that's funny.  I've lost games when I had Yawg Will get countered and I didn't have backup.  I've also had games where Yawg Will sat in my hand while combo steamrolled me or fish kicked the crap out of my mana base.

Yawg Will must suck then huh?

No, Will doesn't suck. Yawgmoth's Will is a bomb that operates both in the midgame and in the lategame to great efficiency. Gifts Ungiven is a definite late-game bomb that slightly less efficient at operating as a midgame bomb than Will, because it costs more mana to play. I was merely questioning the wisdom of playing more late-game bombs in a deck that has been found to struggle in the early game, when it could instead be focusing on improving its early game. The biting sarcasm does not help this discussion.

It is much more effective to make your argument when you don't use such broad terms that can describe almost any card.

[Metman]

I really don't understand anytime you'd be running Gifts in this deck. You may as well just play Gifts in that case.

It's a win condition in CS the same way it is in Gifts; with enough mana it wins.  That's why I posted this thread initially, to dispel any off-topic rants about how CS can't break Gifts.  Not only can it, it did and it's done well doing so.

Gifts is worse than Fact in this deck and Fact is an arguable inclusion. I'm not seeing it. Then again I only play with two of the best CS players period, so what do I know?

I'm going to have to disagree with you here.  I have found Gifts much stronger than Fact for the simple reason that it has nothing to do with luck.  Sometimes Fact is huge; Gifts always is. 

[diopter]

I have lost a number of games where Gifts didn't resolve because I didn't have enough countermagic to back it up, and still more games where Gifts sat in my hand while combo steamrolled me or Fish laid its obnoxious Rods or Chalices.

Wow, that's funny.  I've lost games when I had Yawg Will get countered and I didn't have backup.  I've also had games where Yawg Will sat in my hand while combo steamrolled me or fish kicked the crap out of my mana base.

Yawg Will must suck then huh?

No, Will doesn't suck. Yawgmoth's Will is a bomb that operates both in the midgame and in the lategame to great efficiency. Gifts Ungiven is a definite late-game bomb that slightly less efficient at operating as a midgame bomb than Will, because it costs more mana to play. I was merely questioning the wisdom of playing more late-game bombs in a deck that has been found to struggle in the early game, when it could instead be focusing on improving its early game. The biting sarcasm does not help this discussion.

It is much more effective to make your argument when you don't use such broad terms that can describe almost any card.

Let me try again then.

CS already has a number of expensive cards that hinder its opening turn. Yawg Will provides an enormous card advantage boost (and tempo if you have access to Time Walk) in both the midgame and lategame - especially in the midgame, where you often have access to extra mana in your graveyard due to Thirst discards, Lotus activations, or fetchlands. Giant artifacts enable your midgame bombs Thirst For Knowledge and Tinker, as well as being lategame bombs themselves. Gifts.... boosts a lategame that is already ridiculously powerful. At 3U, it's costed too highly to be a midgame bomb, because you will also need extra mana to cast the cards you Gifts for. It doesn't enable other midgame cards the way your artifacts enable Thirst. It certainly does not boost your early game (unless you count pitching to FoW). It doesn't have a place in CS.

[Vegeta2711]

Gifts always is.

Do you mean to include, 'if welder is out' with this statement? Because I'll agree, with Welder I much rather have Gifts resolve. Otherwise I'm having problems concludng what Gifts pile is so awesome in this deck if you don't, especially one that's stronger than Fact.

[warble]

Gifts always is.

Do you mean to include, 'if welder is out' with this statement? Because I'll agree, with Welder I much rather have Gifts resolve. Otherwise I'm having problems concludng what Gifts pile is so awesome in this deck if you don't, especially one that's stronger than Fact.

Mystical, Vampiric, Demonic, Black Lotus

or how about

Time Walk, Demonic Tutor, Goblin Charbelcher, Goblin Welder

Gifts isn't broken because a gifts deck exists that bears the title "Gifts".  It's broken because the card titled Gifts Ungiven is broken, not in one deck but in all decks.  If you fail to win with Gifts resolved in ANY deck (where you haven't already lost the game) it's either bad deck construction or poor play.  I challenge you to find a circumstance where I can't break Gifts but Fact or Fiction will save the day.  And the whole Night's Whisper thing rules and all, but I would never play a 2-cost draw spell over another welder.  That's just silly.  A tutor/win condition is a whole different thing altogether.

[Vegeta2711]

I challenge you to find a circumstance where I can't break Gifts but Fact or Fiction will save the day.

Um, how? Like I'm all for bullshit and all, but this 'challenge' doesn't even make sense. The top 5 cards are random, obviously I can't tell you when it will or won't just win you the game completely.

As for the Gifts piles.
#1: Paying 5 mana for a card I want = not that great. Oh and you have a 2nd card-disadvantage tutor ready to go the next time around. Whoopity-do.

#2: So you get Time Walk and a huge Drain target whose worth is completely dependent on Serverance cast / in hand.

See I used to play Gifts in CS, that's why I'm  :shock: at most of these examples as their pretty weak.

[diopter]

Mystical, Vampiric, Demonic, Black Lotus

or how about

Time Walk, Demonic Tutor, Goblin Charbelcher, Goblin Welder

1.) One of the best "broken Gifts pile" I've ever seen proposed in CS is Recall, Time Walk, Tinker, Demonic Tutor, a pile that was suggested by Kowal in a CS thread last month in the Improvement forum. That pile was great, as you would often get Recall and Time Walk, but even then, it was expensive and would not help you when you are trying to develop your board position, because you wouldn't even have the mana to cast Gifts with an underdeveloped board.

... I would never play a 2-cost draw spell over another welder. That's just silly. A tutor/win condition is a whole different thing altogether.

2.) Your statement is flawed. Night's Whisper is strong in CS because it helps you develop your board. Without a cheaply costed business spell like Whisper in Slaver, you have to lean hard on your Thirsts and Brainstorms to hit all of your land drops AND hit more gas - this is a tall order. I could see using disadvantage tutors if you wanted to increase the number of broken starts CS. Gifts, though, is incredibly unwieldy, and only helps you capitalize on mana gluts - a luxury that CS rarely has until the late game.

If you fail to win with Gifts resolved in ANY deck (where you haven't already lost the game) it's either bad deck construction or poor play.

3.) I agree and disagree. Resolving Gifts is indeed strong but it doesn't read "I win" - sometimes Gifts just comes down a turn too late (again, because of its critical 4-mana cost), and it doesn't do anything when I'm staring down a plethora of lock pieces. And, I agree that failing to win with Gifts indicates bad deck construction - it is bad deck construction to include Gifts in CS builds without considering CS's needs and evaluating whether Gifts fulfills those needs.

[aryah]

I think the discussion drifted from the topic a little - Gifts in slaver - yes or no? - seems a hotly disputed issue, as is FoF vs Gifts, and Im sure this has been dragged through the forums many times. if this were the topic , maybe a sumarry of arguments stated thusfar would help focus the discussion, but in this thread it would I think be drifting too far into a pretty narrow issue about CS than the orig post tried to adress.

While both of those issues have been extensively debated, it seems to me that a few recent CS trends have been neglected. Ive seen (some of) the discussion on night's whisper's inclusion in CS. The orig poster speaks of first starting w the testing of Lat-Nam's Legacy , but eventually concluding that "at the beginning of the next turn's upkeep" makes it unsatisfactory. Some even suggested Impulse. Ive tried digging through spoiler generators for otr options, but cant say I saw something new and original. I know many choices in any deck, especially something as configurabile as CS are a matter of personal prefference and playstyle, and some are dictated by metagame. So have any of you tried any of the mentioned or unmentioned alternatives to Nights whisper or has NW been accepted, by obvious deduction or simply by orig posters authority as the correct choice if such kind of a card is played?

Ive allso not seen much talk of the inclusion of the Jar, i gather over FoF in CS builds lately, and hesitance of some players to use Crucible. Im just beggining to explore this deck after having not played a few years , so I certanly have no relevant opinions, but Crucible didnt quite seem as being a logical extension of CS gameplan, i must admit.

Im also not quite sure that CS early game issues are the most important thing to adress in configuring it, as was suggested a few times in the FoF/Gifts etc arguments. Nor can CS's superiority lategame be automatically assumed - due to mirrors and otr controll decks that have or can also have superb lategame. These are metagame issues, and can vary greatly, so arent generally applicalbe arguments. Id hate to loose to fats decks often certanly, but i absolutelly preffer playing that slightly more controllish deck than most of the controll metagame, in mirrors and vs otr controll.

[Khahan]

I've noticed one thing with CS in the past month to 2 months: It loses the counter wars consistently.
Too many decks pack the FoW/Mana drain, but also pack in 2 misdirections. Add in REB (which CS can use and some do out of the SB) and slaver is going to lose the counter war too often.

That seems to be the most common downfall I run into (not the biggest...the biggest is early game disruptions. CS has a lot of hands that are extremely powerfull...if they go undisrupted by null rod or wasteland or chalice etc).

So how would you address these problems?

1) Continue w/ the 8 counters as you h ave been and wait for MisD to fall to the wayside again.
2) Add MisD to CS maindeck and then bring in 4 REB out of the SB
3) Add in more card drawing elements to keep your hand full and increase the chances of having the counter in hand when needed?

I have no problem adding 2 MisD slots to the maindeck. There are a handful of shaky/customizable slots. The problem this creates is then sideboarding. These are the slots I'm currently taking out to side in REB or spheres lately.

If you go with option 1, you might as well set aside CS for now. That is not what I'm looking to do.

If you go with option 3...again, customizable slots for Card drawing to improve your draw quantity is great..but it takes away from the easy sideboard cards.


As far as other problems go: Flame-tongue Kavu is nice to use against heavy creature decks.
Gifts tends to be a problem again suddenly, mostly due to the counterwar problem mentioned above.

Pitchlong is problematic due to the counterwar problems.
Other combo decks (tps, dragon) seems to come down to the pilots. Any given match can go either way.

Most other established decks I end up playing against I do pretty well.

[GUnit]

I've noticed one thing with CS in the past month to 2 months: It loses the counter wars consistently.
Too many decks pack the FoW/Mana drain, but also pack in 2 misdirections. Add in REB (which CS can use and some do out of the SB) and slaver is going to lose the counter war too often.

I use your option 2, but I don't find that I have a problem sideboarding. There is a lot of fat in the 11 custom slots which can easily come out in the gifts matchup, regardless of what your choices are. If you end up with the same amount of countermagic as your opponent, but you don't necessarily have to resolve your threats to win then the match- strictly in terms of counter wars- things seem decent to me.